


Lives of Fiction

by Lady_Avid



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Case Fic, John loves tea, Kinda, M/M, Non-Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Writer!John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 08:43:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Avid/pseuds/Lady_Avid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Tell me about myself,” the man says after a few moments of silence. His voice is deep and demanding but has a tone of soft curiosity and eagerness.<br/>“Excuse me?”<br/>“You've been watching me for the past two weeks. I know what it’s like to watch people and try to figure out their life story. But never have I been under that look. Now,” he leans in, “tell me about myself.”</p><p>In which John writes about other people because he finds his own life too dull and Sherlock is about to change all that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lives of Fiction

**Author's Note:**

> Lives of Fiction  
> Lady_Avid
> 
> I study a lot at Barnes and Noble and, as study breaks, I people watch. I try (and fail) to be like Sherlock and deduce their lives. Like I said, I fail miserably. But it's fun. And I wonder how Sherlock would handle being deduced so then this story just kinda snowballed. It's Sherlock/John but if you blink you'll miss it.
> 
> Unbeta'd and not britpicked. All mistakes are my own.

“Here’s your tea, John,” Kayla smiles as she slides his Earl Grey across the counter.

“Cheers,” he says, picking up the tea and shrugging his laptop bag higher onto his shoulder. The tea is hot enough to burn his hand through the cup as he makes his way to his favorite seat in the small coffee shop. The seat is a bit wobbly and the back is too stiff but he can’t pass up the view. It’s in the front corner so his back is to no one and he is able to see everyone clearly. He used to think it was weird to have a favorite spot in a coffee shop or even to be on first name basis with the workers. But that was when he was a solider moving from day to day in the hot Afghanistan sun. Now, he’s a civilian again. A normal, regular civilian who is a regular with a favorite seat at a coffee shop.

He pulls out his laptop. His therapist had suggested that he wrote. “It’ll help you adjust to civilian life,” she had said. Only, there’s nothing interesting going on in his life. Nothing ever happens to him. A few weeks ago, when he was walking back from his therapist’s office along the short cut through the park, he saw his old uni friend Mike Stamford. He was already in enough self-pity without having to compare his life successes and failures to Stamford. So he sprinted (hobbled, really, with his cane and aching leg) the opposite way and into the local coffee shop. He had been here twice before and he had thought the tea wasn’t half bad so he stopped and waited for Mike to leave.

As he waited, with nothing to read or to do, he couldn’t help but notice the people around him. The mother who tried relentlessly to stop her crying toddler. The young couple cooing over each other in the back corner. The business man going through his scattered papers frantically. The elderly man reading the paper and taking slow sips of coffee.

Oddly enough, he found his fingers itching to type. He had a need to figure out the backstories of these people. What would soothe the toddler? Does the couple’s parents approve of their relationship? What paper is this man searching for? Why is this elderly man sitting alone?

Over the past few weeks, John has been returning to this coffee shop with his laptop. He watches the people around him and writes about them. He comes up with interesting backstories and elaborate plots about their lives. Sometimes, he’ll see a returning face. Those are his favorite. He pulls up what he had already written about them and continues their story, changing ideas and plot lines with the new information he gathers that day.

And once he had talked to the elderly man who comes once a week on Sundays and they shared military stories.

This is not what his therapist had in mind (she had said so last week) but it puts some order in his life. And for that, he’s grateful.

He sips his tea as his laptop boots up and surveys his subjects today. Small crowd but Wednesday afternoons usually are. There’s a middle aged couple sitting at the table next to him. The woman’s reading a romance novel. The man’s flipping through a car magazine. There’s a man typing on his laptop. He glances at his watch often then at the coffee shop door then returns to typing. There’s a loud group of girls in the corner talking about plans for Christmas break. The one girl seems to be leading the whole conversation while the other two are failing to get their opinion out there. The last person is a man in a long coat reading what looked to be _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_ while completely ignoring his drink.

John writes about the man on his laptop. He is a busy business man who can’t make time for his family. His wife wants to file for a divorce but she doesn’t have a job so she’s dependent on the little income he makes. His younger daughter hates him because he’s never there; his eldest daughter understands the work he puts in for the family and is working at the movie theater to help out. He is waiting for a business partner to meet him. They’re putting together a project and he’s hoping it’ll take off at work. He’ll get a promotion, make more money, then he can spend time with his wife and kids and everything will be fine.

Mid-sentence on the details of his project, the man slams his laptop shut, stands up, and leaves quickly. John writes that his business partner has fallen through and he’s afraid his life will never turn around. The story ends there. Kind of depressing, he thinks, but has a possibility for a hopeful turnabout. He looks up to find his next subject and the man reading _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_ leaves as well. John focuses on the girls in the back and writes a future (and very likely) dramatic fight over a trip to Dublin.  

0o0

John returns two days later. He’s upset to see that Julie is working instead of Kayla- Julie doesn’t make an Early Grey like Kayla does and her coffee is even worse. He doesn’t understand how someone can mess up coffee and tea that much and still work in a coffee shop but he orders his usual tea anyway. At a last minute decision, he gets a biscuit to wash it down.

As his laptop starts up, he glances around the coffee shop. There’s a college student listening to music while studying a medical book. He wonders what health profession she’s majoring in. There’s the man in the long coat again. He’s reading an Agatha Christie book- he’s not sure which one.

He writes about the medical student. He originally writes her as a future doctor but then she pulls a book entitled _Med-Surg for Nurses_ and he switches her to nursing. He dated a nursing student while at uni and he knows all about their stressful curriculum. So he writes about her fear of failing her classes, her lack of sleep, and excessive caffeine intake to increase her study time. He writes how her friends are frustrated because she never goes out anymore, she wants a boyfriend but doesn’t have time, and she’s running on pure will power to get through the last two semesters.

He writes for almost two hours then his sister calls. “I… I got into a bit of a bender last night,” she says as if this is news to him. “And I tripped coming up the stairs. I thought my ankle was fine last night but now it’s looking quite huge. Can you come to look at it?” John rolls his eyes but packs up his laptop anyway. As he leaves, he holds the door open for an anxious looking pregnant business woman. She thanks him quickly and ducks inside. Honestly, he thinks as he hobbles down the street, the last thing that woman needs is caffeine.

0o0

Harry indeed did sprain her ankle quite badly. She’s a bit of a drama queen when it comes to injuries and John barely had time for himself over the past three days. Every time he left her alcohol reeking flat, she called him right back to help her. Finally, he had left with the resolve of not returning and switched off his mobile.  

He orders a large tea at the shop and just relaxes for the first five minutes. He breathes in the Earl Grey and the tension in his body leaves with the exhale. It’s the small things in life that keeps him going. Like hot tea and writing fictional stories on strangers. It’s more therapeutic than it seems.

Finally, John feels more like himself and he pulls out his laptop. There’s a teenage girl talking loudly on her phone. She’s saying shut up a lot and it’s rather annoying. There’s an elderly couple discussing Christmas presents for their grandchildren. They appear to have a lot, more than ten. John’s taken by surprise to see the man in the long coat at the same table. He’s reading what appears to be a book on deadly plants. He’s never seen him before last week but now he’s seen him the past three times he has been here. Did he just move to London? Did he just recently discover this coffee shop? Maybe he’s been away the past few weeks.

John begins writing. He makes this tall man with sharp cheekbones into a traveler who leaves for weeks at a time then returns home for a few weeks. He enjoys classic books and reads them during his downtime. But when he gets an assignment, he checks out the deadly plants in the area because who knows what he might run into in Columbia? He writes about his past trip to Peru and the dangers he encountered there. John has not figured out his exact occupation and why he is sent to such interesting places but he’s having too much fun writing about avoiding Peruvian snakes to care about the details.

Kayla comes to his table and hands him the store’s phone. Confused, he takes it and answers, “Hello…?”

“John! Why is your mobile off?” Harry demands with a slight slur. He glances at the clock on his computer. Two in the afternoon. Why is he not surprised?

“I think the more important question is how the hell did you get this number?”

“You said something about something about some coffee shop so I’ve been calling around all the ones in the area. This is the… third? Fourth?”

“Jesus, Harry!”

“What? What good is my doctor brother if he’s not going to actually help me in my time of need?”

“Your ankle is sprained. It’s not like you’re dying!”

“But I really need you, Johnny!”

Goddamnit, she pulled out the Johnny trick.

“I’ll be over in five. If I think it’s totally unimportant, you will not see me again until your ankle is better.”

He hangs up the phone and gives it back to Kayla with an apology. He packs up his laptop and sneaks a glance at the man in the long coat. John hopes he comes back soon. His story was just too interesting.

0o0

John, now that he has banished contact with his sister for the next three weeks, walks into the coffee shop and is pleased to see the man in the long coat is there. He orders his tea, sets up his laptop, and checks out the book the man is reading. It’s hard to make out the title but it appears to be something about quantum physics.

A traveling physicist? Does that make sense? John shrugs and goes with it. He writes about this man who travels to poor countries to teach physics to students. It’s not always safe but it’s worthwhile. He’s met many interesting people and inspired countless others. He writes about some of the students he has taught and the poor conditions he lived in.

He writes for just over an hour and a half when the man receives a text and he bolts out the door. John still has some creative juice flowing so he switches his focus to the camp man flipping through a screenplay.

0o0

The man in the long coat does not reappear for three days. John wonders if he’s off to Singapore teaching physics. He writes about a boy who got stood up on a date, a business woman considering quitting her job after an intense fight with her boss, and an American who is visiting her online boyfriend for the first time.

On Sunday, John sees the elderly man who reads the newspaper and the man waves him over. They talk about life in the military again. John enjoys the way this man tells stories. He explains them in a dramatic, expressive way and John finds himself on the edge of his seat waiting to see how it ends. The man always ends his stories with a small laugh and a “Those were the days…”

Midway through the conversation, John looks up to see the man in the long coat walking through the door. After John tells the elderly man about some of his serious medical cases where he was sure the solider wasn’t going to make it, the elderly man mentions experiencing back pain over the past few days and John helps him out to the best of his ability. The man thanks him as he leaves. “I really appreciate this, our talks. You’re a good man, solider.”  

John watches him as he leaves, hobbling out with his cane. He wonders if he’ll end up like this man when he gets older. He doesn’t think he’d mind.

The man in the long coat is still here. He’s reading a book on the history of the British government. He frowns. How the hell does he tie in government to a traveling physics teacher? Maybe’s he’s not a traveling teacher but a politician? What would a politician need to know about physics and deadly plants though? John doesn’t realize that he’s staring until the man looks up at him. John has never been caught staring before. His face turns bright red when the man smirks at him. John tucks his face behind his laptop screen and idly types out a lame and rather plot less story about the two female friends sitting to his left.

When he picks up his head, the man in the long coat is gone.

0o0

No matter what his therapist and his sister say, John does have a life outside of the coffee shop. He spent a considerable amount of time searching for a job when he arrived back to London. He was glad to have found one at a small clinic just a short walk from his apartment and even shorter walk from the coffee shop. “It may be a bit… mundane,” Sarah, his new co-worker, had said when he was hired. But after invading Afghanistan, mundane really isn’t that awful. It’s not great. But not… _completely_ awful.

John’s always been good at throwing himself into a task wholeheartedly. When he’s writing, he’s focused on writing. When he’s at the surgery, his mind is one hundred percent on the patient. However, recently, his mind has been slowly shifting to the man in the long coat. He thinks about what his backstory may be. Who is this man? What is his occupation? Where was he before two weeks ago and why is he now constantly at the coffee shop? Why does he have such nice cheekbones?

His thoughts about the man in the long coat started off simple enough. He doesn’t often think about what his subjects do once they leave the coffee shop and they stay out of his thoughts unless they reappear at another time. But occasionally, he’ll think about them. He’ll wonder if the nursing student passed her test, he’ll wonder if that business man ever got his life together, and he’ll wonder what the man in the long coat does during his free time.

But then his thoughts started to turn slightly obsessive. He would think of his dark curly locks while putting a bit of product in his hair. He would wonder what his voice would sound like while listening to a patient explaining his symptoms. He would ponder about his favorite foods while grocery shopping. And, most recently, he would fixate on his smirk and his bright eyes in the shower.

John can admit that this is getting a bit out of hand.

He’s reluctant to find a new coffee shop. This one is close, the tea is fantastic (granted Julie isn’t working), and the atmosphere is perfect for writing. Plus, he has a favorite seat and knows the workers on a first name basis. He’s reluctant to let that go. Writing has become such a stable in his life that he has come to realize that he’d be lost without it.

In conclusion, the writing must stay, the coffee shop must stay. But how to fix the problem of the man in the long coat with the perfect cheekbones and bow shaped lips?

0o0

John enters the coffee shop a few hours later than he normally goes. Kayla has just gotten off shift and Julie has gotten on. He frowns but he’s willing to make the sacrifice. He buys an Early Grey and a biscuit then turns to walk to his seat.

But there’s someone already there.

The man in the long coat is sitting across from John’s seat. He doesn’t have a book with him and he waits patiently with his hands folded on the table. John falters in his step and his cane seems to stumble on thin air. The man hears the misstep and glances over his shoulder. He gives what appears to be a short, quick smile and gestures to John’s seat with a tilt of his head.

Cautiously, John slides into his seat. The man doesn’t say anything and neither does John. There is so much he wants to ask but has no idea how to start.

“Tell me about myself,” the man says after a few moments of silence. His voice is deep and demanding but has a tone of soft curiosity and eagerness.

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve been watching me for the past two weeks. I know what it’s like to watch people and try to figure out their life story. But never have I been under that look. Now,” he leans in, “tell me about myself.”

John pauses. The man is eagerly awaiting his response but while he waits his eyes never stop moving, constantly observing and taking in new information. Is he trying to figure out John’s life story? “I haven’t been able to work you out,” he admits.

“Tell me what you have and I’ll respond in kind.”

“You’re a traveling physics teacher with a love of the classics and government but I’m not sure of the government part though.”

The man’s lips curve into a smile. John is not sure if he’s right or wrong. “What makes you say that? Where is your proof?”

“I’ve been coming here for six weeks. You only started to show up two weeks ago. I was thinking you may travel for weeks at a time then return home to London where you frequent this coffee shop with your classic novels. You may go to rural areas in exotic places judging by the deadly plants book you were reading. But then you brought in a physics book and I thought maybe physics teacher. Again, not sure where to throw in your book on the British government.”

The man hums, “Not too bad.”

“Am I right then?”

“Not in the slightest.” John deflates a bit. “My turn. You’re an army doctor. Ex-army doctor. Wounded in battle and suffering from PTSD and a psychosocial limp. Not entirely sure what to do with your life now that you have been forced back from battle. Your therapist suggested you write. But you don’t find your life interesting enough so you turn to writing about other people.”

“How did you-?”

“The way you hold yourself in line for tea says military. Not to mention I overheard your conversation with the elderly ex-Navy officer the other day. You were comparing military stories and mentioned the army. He was complaining about backaches and you gave him medical advice- sound medical advice, not the crap people parrot from watching medical dramas. You have a cane and a limp, injured in battle, yet your posturing while waiting in line suggests you forget it is there- hence psychosocial. So maybe the injury is elsewhere? The way you look around the room with cautious eyes, the shaking of your hands when you pass the money to the cashier… probably PTSD, increased probability with the occupation of an army doctor and the being wounded in battle. You have a therapist- of course you have a therapist, don’t give me that look. She wants to help you put meaning in your life so she told you to write about yourself. But instead you come here and write about others. You sit down, pop open you laptop, and look around the room. Once you find a good subject, you start typing. Occasionally, you look up to try and pull inspiration from them, but for the most part, you write down whatever you can think of.”

John knows his mouth is hanging and he snaps it shut. “That was… amazing.”

The man blinks, “You think so?”

“Of course it was. Absolutely amazing. I’ve been trying to do that for weeks and I couldn’t go anywhere nearly as in depth as you did. If I were to look at myself, I would just see some man who writes a lot.”

“I don’t believe you’re nearly as bad as you say you are.”

“Oh? What makes you say that? The only story you heard was your own and I was completely wrong!”

The man leans back in his chair and crosses his arm. His eyes never stop taking in information. “That’s because I knew you were watching and I purposely made sure you did not get any real information about me. But for what I was giving you, you did reasonably well. Now, a few weeks ago, there was a business man who came in. The first day I was here. I saw you write about him. Do you remember?”

John clearly remembers him and he nods.

“Good. Tell me about him.”

John tells him about his failing marriage, his youngest daughter who hates him, the eldest who tries to help with the limited income, and the potential business partner who fell through. As he speaks, the man grins wider.

“Almost completely correct,” he says. “The man is certainly losing control of his life due to enormous debt and is trying to find a way out through a business deal. What you did miss, however, is that the business deal is not legal.”

“Illegal? But how?”

The man’s eyes leave John and follow two men in suits with briefcases out the door. One is tall and confident with blonde hair gelled neatly in place. The other is shorter with thinning hair and looks like he could use a yearlong kip. The man in the long coat leans in close to John and grabs his hand. “Let me show you.” John barely has time to grab his laptop case before he’s being pulled out the door.

“Where on earth are you taking me?” John asks as the man leads him through a busy crowd. The two men who just left the coffee shop are a few steps in front of them. “I don’t even know your name!”

“Sherlock Holmes, nice to meet you,” he says, never taking his eyes off of the business men crossing the street. Sherlock yanks hard and John stumbles with him, just narrowing avoiding being hit by a car.

Sherlock doesn’t say anything and he doesn’t let his grip on John’s hand slip. They keep a distance from the two men, far enough to not draw attention but close enough to never lose tract of them. They follow them down two blocks, make a left, then another block. The men enter a tall building made entirely out of windows. Sherlock stops short and they watch the men walk past the secretary. The blond man nods to her and she smiles back. The other man keeps his head down.

“What now?” John says.

“We wait. Shouldn’t take long,” Sherlock responds. He drops his hand and walks over to a bench outside of the building.  

“You said you wanted to show me something. So far all I see is those men entering the building.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes, “Yes, clearly. But think. The past few weeks you’ve been at the coffee shop. Who do you see a lot of?”

“People.”

Sherlock shoots him a glare, “Don’t be dull. I’m talking about a specific group of people.”

John thinks back to all the times he’s been at the shop. He sees a lot of frustrated mothers with children, students, couples and… “Business people. Almost every day there’s a business worker there.”

“Exactly,” Sherlock nods. “Now how do they look? What is their expression?”

“A lot of them are rather frazzled looking- like they’re at the end of their wits.”

“Perfect, yes. There’s a mastermind targeting business workers who are desperate- either for money or job security. This mastermind convinces them to go into a partnership with him. However, he’s very picky about who he works with. He makes promises with desperate business workers, tells them to meet him at a coffee shop, and then falls through. He’s looking for people who are desperate enough, in a good position at work, and working for a company with a lot of wealth. This whole thing-It’s a waiting game, you see. I’ve been following him for two weeks now waiting for him to show up. Today, he’s finally made his move.”

“What is the business deal? What makes it so illegal?”

“The man has a virus that will transfer the company’s money to his own bank account. He just needs the right person to go through with it, to plug it into their company’s computer system. He’ll feed them promises of a better life, more power, more money… but in reality, he’s framing them for the money transferals and he walks clean. I need that virus.”

“And how to you propose that?”

“In a few minutes, I’m going to walk into that building and pull the fire alarm. The man will panic and grab the virus on his flash drive. When he comes out- you got a good glimpse of him, didn’t you?-, tackle him and get the flash drive. Don’t worry about all the technical stuff. By the time this happens, the police will be here. I told Lestrade what you look like; he’ll be there to help you after you get the flash drive.”

“Wait, I’m sorry- what? Who are you?”

Sherlock smirks, “Guess.”

John exhales sharply. Is everything a game to this man? “Jesus, I don’t know. You work with the police but I highly doubt you’re a police officer yourself unless you’re doing some serious undercover work. I would say detective but… police don’t go to detectives. Oh, I don’t know. I’m not like you, I can’t figure out someone’s life story in five seconds!”

“Consulting detective- that’s what I am. When the police are out of their depth, which is always, they consult me. Of course, you couldn’t deduce what I am because I invented the job.”

“You… you invented your job?” John starts to laugh. “Jesus Christ, I really had no hope to figuring your job then, did I? Traveling physics teacher, what a joke.”

“Like I said, you did reasonably well for the information that I gave you. A lot better than most of the other idiots out in the world.” He stands up and pops his collar. “Police have already been notified. Watch for him coming out.”

Sherlock says nothing else before he walks into the building. John keeps his eye on him through the glass windows. Sherlock just floats through the lobby like he works there, like he’s been working there for years. No one except one man notices him. The man waves at him and Sherlock waves back, feigning pleasantness. John’s never seen anything like it. Sherlock disappears and John lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

Jesus, how did he end up here? He woke up this morning determined to go about his normal day and avoid seeing the man in the long coat. He had a normal breakfast of beans on toast, had a normal day at the surgery, then went to the coffee shop to have what he assumed would be a normal day of writing. Now, he’s outside a high rise building waiting for the man he swore he’d never see again to pull a fire alarm so he can tackle a scheming criminal.

John feels like he should run for it. He doesn’t belong here. He’s just a normal man trying to live his normal life. There’s nothing wrong about waking up, going to work, writing, then going back to sleep. Nothing ever happens to him…

But as he stands to leave, he instinctively grabs his laptop case and his cane, and finds his cane gone. John thinks back and realized he never grabbed it as Sherlock pulled him out of his seat. “Oh my god…” he whispers under his breath. Months he spent trying to wean himself off of using his cane. Months! But every time he got too far, his knee would buckle and he’d collapse. Sherlock, this strange man in a long coat, comes along, tells him he has a psychosocial limb, pulls him out of his favorite seat, chases down a business fraud man, and suddenly he’s cured. He stretches his leg out. Not even a tinge of pain.

The shrill shriek of the fire alarm pulls John out of his head space. The people around begin to dash away, screaming as if they had caught fire themselves. John jumps to his feet and scans the workers sprinting out of the building. At first only a few people start to trickle out then a large wave rushes through the doors and John is caught up in the aftermath. Even when he climbs onto the bench to oversee everyone, there are just too many people moving too quickly. This is a large building so there’s obviously going to be a lot of outflow…

But since it’s such a large building, surely there has to be more than one exit.

Oh god, he thinks, clambering down from the bench and into the massive throng of people, there’s probably more than one exit.

The workers are pushing against him and it’s like swimming upstream. John eventually makes his way through with no less than a few bruised ribs and an elbow to the head and darts down the alleyway. There are less people running through there and they’re running in the opposite direction. John chases after them looking for the tall blond with the neatly gelled hair.

The alleyway dumps out into another street where the workers stop to look back to find signs of fire. John jumps up onto another bench and scans for the man. He sees a flash of gelled blond hair shoving past the crowd. John takes off, without a twinge in his bad leg, around the horde. The blond breaks through and runs swiftly down the street. John sees his briefcase securely in his hand and he prays the flash drive is inside of it as he puts on a burst of speed.

The man is quick, very quick. He dodges people on the street with all the grace and agility of a cheetah. John slams into almost everyone who stands before him with no more than a quick apology thrown over his shoulder. He hears sirens blaring in the background. Sherlock had said he called the police. Will they be able to figure out which one is the culprit?

Jesus Christ, he’s losing him. Miracles can happen, surely. He’s all but proven it with his limp disappearing in a matter of minutes, however, that leg has barely seen proper exercise since Afghanistan. There’s a very little chance of him being able to put on any more speed than he already has.

But as if someone upstairs can hear him, the street light just ahead of the blond man flashes red and the man stops a few seconds short of being flattened by a car. And those few seconds are all John needs to rugby tackle him down.

0o0

“That was quite an excellent tackle. Played rugby back in uni, I’m assuming.”

John coughs in embarrassment. “Yes, I did, actually. I guess it’s quite obvious to you.”

“Muscular stature from playing prior to your time in the army. Easy going personality, the type who would be willing to join in a game whenever friends invited you and you are the type to easily make friends. I also saw the end of your tackle and I recognized that type of attack. Plus, there’s an England Rugby Rose sticker on the back of your laptop.”

After John had tackled the blond man, named Dennis McCarthy, the Detective Inspector, Lestrade, appeared by his side within seconds and handcuffed him. Before taking McCarthy away, Lestrade glanced at him, “You’re the solider Sherlock mentioned?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, god bless you. Sherlock’s taken an interest in you and who knows what that could lead to.”

Sherlock had arrived before he could ask what the bloody hell that meant. He exchanged a few words with Lestrade before asking if John would be so kind to join him at the coffee shop.

Sitting with anyone at the coffee shop is a little weird. He’s used to sitting alone, with his laptop, unless it was Sunday and the ex-Navy old man was here. Now, he’s sitting with the man in the long coat, of all people, and his laptop is secure in his case. It feels almost like an invasion of privacy but, oddly, not uncomfortable. It’s like nothing has really changed except Sherlock is now closer and they’re talking. Instead of John watching him and making up a fictional life about him, he’s now finding out his real life and exchanging his own history information.

He could definitely get used to it.

“Well, I’m glad to be of use.”

Sherlock watches him and John can almost see the thinking process going on in his head before he finally replies. “Yes, you were of use. You were of great use. …I play the violin at night, would that bother you?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Sometimes I go for days without talking. Potential flat mates should know the worst about each other.”

“Who said anything about a flat?”

“I did. We already established that you’re a recently returned war hero. Army pensions aren’t a lot and London is expensive. The clothes you’re wearing are worn out and a few years old. Your laptop is incredibly out of date and I’m surprised it’s still working. Probably from before your army days. So not enough money to go and buy a new laptop or clothes. You buy an Earl Grey whenever you come here but it’s the cheapest thing on the menu. You probably feel bad about coming here and taking up a table for hours without ever buying anything so you buy the cheap tea. Maybe you just like Earl Grey but you also almost never buy a side to go with it. Once in a while a biscuit, but again, cheap.

“I heard you talk on the phone with someone twice last week. You sounded annoyed and resigned. Most likely an annoying family member. Sibling, most likely. So you do have options for people to stay with but, like I said, annoying so you’d rather struggle with money. I have a flat reserved for me; I just need someone to split the rent with. You have money issues. I could use the work of an assistant. You performed wonderfully today.” Sherlock leans in, resting his chin on the tops of his fingers. “Just think, you come here to write about other people’s lives because you don’t find yours interesting enough. Allow me to change that.”

0o0

“John!” Kayla says brightly as he walks up to the counter. “It’s been a few days since you’ve last been in. Sherlock’s been keeping you busy?”

“Oh yes, running around all of London, nearly getting us killed,” John says with an affectionate huff. “I’m just about to type up the review.”

“Oh good, it’s been a while since the last one. Honestly, the things you two get yourselves into,” Kayla laughs and slides his Earl Grey across the counter. “It is the most entertaining blog I’ve ever read! I can’t believe this is your life now, John!”

“Believe me, neither can I.”

John grabs his tea and sets up at his favorite spot. There’s a good variety of people here today but John hardly notices. He doesn’t often write about other people anymore. There’s really very little need to unless Sherlock’s in his black mood, in which John runs for it and takes shelter in the coffee shop. The way he sees it, there is nothing he can come up with about these people around him that can compare to the excitement of his real life with Sherlock Holmes.

 

 


End file.
